The unit of Massachusetts history is eighty-six years. As a considerable part of American history relates to Massachusetts, or traces its origin from there, the same unit measures much of the life of the Nation itself. It begins in the year 1603 when Queen Elizabeth died, and King James came to the throne, and the season was the spring. It was King James who determined to make the Puritans conform or to harry them out of his kingdom. He did not succeed in making them conform, but he harried the Pilgrims into Holland whence they came to Plymouth Rock. For eighty-six years Massachusetts was managed under a colonial government, whose last days were those of a province with a royal governor in control. It was on the 19th of April, 1689, that this royal governor, whose name was Andros, looked out through the port-hole of the ship on which he was a prisoner, and saw the sun rise over Boston Harbor prior to his enforced return to England. That was the end of provincial governors in New England, and the beginning of the assertion of the doctrine of independence. Eighty-six years later to a day, a little band of Massachusetts soldiers stood in a line on the green at Lexington, and on the same day a larger company mustered by the bridge in Concord, and the Revolutionary War began. Eighty-six years later to a day, the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, hastening through Baltimore in response to President Lincoln’s call for troops, was fired upon, and the first blood was shed in a long and cruel war which did not end until it was decided that the house which was divided against itself was no longer to be divided; that this was to be one nation and that nation a free nation.

If one had been privileged to visit the Senate Chamber of the United States in three days after the assault upon the Massachusetts troops, he might have beheld an interesting sight. Behind the desk of the President of the Senate stood a little woman reading to the Massachusetts soldiers who were quartered there from their home paper, the Worcester “Spy.” Washington had need of these troops. Had they and their comrades in arms arrived a few days later, the capital would have been in the hands of the Confederates. They came none too soon; Washington had no place to put them, nor was the War Department adequately equipped with tents or other supplies. The Capitol building itself became the domicile of some of the first regiments, and the Senate Chamber was the habitation of the boys from Worcester County. A few of the boys Clara Barton knew personally.

Already the war had become a reality to these Yankee lads. Lincoln’s call for men was issued on April 15, 1861. Massachusetts had four regiments ready. The first of these reached Baltimore four days after the President’s Proclamation. Three men were killed by a mob, and thirty were injured as they marched through Baltimore. The regiment fought its way to the station, regained possession of their locomotive and train, and moved on to Washington.

Clara Barton’s first service to the soldiers was only incidentally to the wounded. There were only thirty of them, and they were adequately cared for. But she, in company with other women, visited the regiment at the Capitol, and she performed her first service to the armies of her country by reading to the homesick boys as they gathered in the Senate Chamber, and she stood in the place that was ordinarily occupied by the Vice-President of the United States. Her own account of this proceeding is contained in a letter to her friend, B. W. Childs:

Washington, April 25th, 1861

My Dear Will:

As you will perceive, I wrote you on the 19th, but have not found it perfectly convenient to send it until now, but we trust that “navigation is open now” for a little. As yet we have had no cause for alarm, if indeed we were disposed to feel any. The city is filling up with troops. The Massachusetts regiment is quartered in the Capitol and the 7th arrived to-day at noon. Almost a week in getting from New York here; they looked tired and warm, but sturdy and brave. Oh! but you should hear them praise the Massachusetts troops who were with them, “Butler’s Brigade.” They say the “Massachusetts Boys” are equal to anything they undertake—that they have constructed a railroad, laid the track, and built an engine since they entered Maryland. The wounded at the Infirmary are all improving—some of them recovered and joined the regiment. We visited the regiment yesterday at the Capitol; found some old friends and acquaintances from Worcester; their baggage was all seized and they have nothing but their heavy woolen clothes—not a cotton shirt—and many of them not even a pocket handkerchief. We, of course, emptied our pockets and came home to tear up old sheets for towels and handkerchiefs, and have filled a large box with all manner of serving utensils, thread, needles, thimbles, scissors, pins, buttons, strings, salves, tallow, etc., etc., have filled the largest market basket in the house and it will go to them in the next hour.

But don’t tell us they are not determined—just fighting mad; they had just one Worcester “Spy” of the 22d, and all were so anxious to know the contents that they begged me to read it aloud to them, which I did. You would have smiled to see me and my audience in the Senate Chamber of the United States. Oh! but it was better attention than I have been accustomed to see there in the old time. “Ber” writes his mother that Oxford is raising a company. God bless her, and the noble fellows who may leave their quiet, happy homes to come at the call of their country! So far as our poor efforts can reach, they shall never lack a kindly hand or a sister’s sympathy if they come. In my opinion this city will be attacked within the next sixty days. If it must be, let it come; and when there is no longer a soldier’s arm to raise the Stars and Stripes above our Capitol, may God give strength to mine.

Write us and tell our friends to write and I will answer when I can. Love to all.

C. H. Barton

Several things are of interest in this letter. One is the place where her work for the soldiers began. It was the Government’s poverty in the matter of tents and barracks which caused the soldiers to be quartered in the Capitol, but it was certainly an interesting and significant thing that her great work had its beginning there. Washington was still expecting to be attacked; she believed that the attack would occur shortly. It was rather a fine sentence with which her letter closed,—“If it must be, let it come; and when there is no longer a soldier’s arm to raise the Stars and Stripes above our Capitol, may God give strength to mine.”

She was still signing her formal letters Clara H. Barton She was no longer Clarissa, and before very long she dropped the middle name and letter entirely, and, from the Civil War on, was simply Clara Barton.

This letter which deals entirely with her military experiences is the first of many of this general character. To a large extent personal matters from this time on dropped out of sight. It will be of interest to go back a few weeks and quote one of her letters to her brother David, in which there is no mention of political or military matters. It is a letter of no great importance in itself, but shows her concern for her father, who had partially recovered from his serious illness, for her niece Ida, her nephew Bub, as she still called Stephen E., though he was now a lad of some size, and for home affairs generally. For her father she had adopted the name given him by her nephews and nieces, and called him “Grandpa”:

Feb. 2nd, 1861

Dear Brother:

I enclose in this a draft for twelve dollars, and will send you another for the remaining fifteen on the first of next month, i.e., provided Uncle Sam is not bankrupt, which he nearly is now and his payments have been very irregular. I have only received a part of my salary for this month—but all right in the end. I have been very sorry that I took the money of you lest you might have wanted it when I might just as well have drawn upon myself, only for the trouble of getting at the Colonel. Another time I should do so, however, for I believe I am the poorest hand in all the world to owe anything. I never rest a moment until all is square. And now, if you have the least need of the remaining fifteen dollars just say so to the Colonel and he will honor your draft so quick you will never know you made it. You may want it for something about the house, or to make out a payment, and if so don’t wait, I pray you, but just call over when you get your draft changed and get the remainder of the Colonel, and tell him in that case he will hear from me very soon. Perhaps Julia or the children have wanted something, and if I have been keeping them out of any comfort I am very sorry.

As it is my intention to keep a strict account with myself of all my expenditures and profits from this time henceforth, you may, if you please, sign the receipt at the top of this sheet, and hand it to Sally to bring to me.

I had thought I should get a line, or some kind of word from you, perhaps, but I suppose you are too busy. Well, this is a very busy world. You will be glad to know that I am very happily situated here; the winter is certainly passing very pleasantly. I find all my old friends so numerous, and so kind, and, unless they falsify grossly, so glad to have me back among them again; I could not have believed that there was half so much kind feeling stored away for me here in this big city of comers and goers. The office and my business relations are all right, and they say I am all right too. The remainder of the winter will be very gay, and I must confess that I fear I am getting a little dissipated, not that I drink champagne and play cards,—oh, no,—but I do go to levees and theaters. I don’t know that I should own up so frankly, only that I am afraid “Mr. Grover” will show me up if I try to keep still and dark. Now, if he does, just tell him that it gets no better, but rather worse if anything, and that he ought to have stayed to attend Mr. Buchanan’s big party. It was splendid—General Scott and the military; in fact, we are getting decidedly military in this region. But we have no winter. Mr. J. S. Brown, of Worcester, came to us in the theater last night at eleven and said a dispatch from Worcester declared the snow to be six feet deep in Massachusetts. We decided to put it down at a foot and a half, and didn’t know but that was big! We couldn’t realize even that, for we have only now and then a little spot of snow, and this morning a monster fog has come and settled down on that, and in two hours we shall forget how snow looks, and in two days, if it doesn’t rain, the dust will blow; but no fears but that it will rain, though.

But I haven’t said a word about Grandpa. I am so glad to know that he is better and even gets into the kitchen; that is splendid, and besides he has had company as well as you all. Ah, ha, I found it out, if none of you told me! Ben Porter came at last!! Please give my congratulations to Grandpa, and you too Julia, for I am writing to you just as much as to Dave, only I don’t know as I said so before. I forgot to tell you—and now if you don’t write me how Adeline and Viola are, I will do some awful thing to come up to you. I don’t justly know what, for if Frank wrote a week he never would tell me. Oh, I had a letter from him last night; said he was over his boots in snow, was going “down east” to Bangor, Dr. Porter’s, etc.

I am afraid my trunk and other things are in your way, and I would ask Sally to take the trunk, only that it seems to me that I had best wait until I see what the 4th of March brings about, and find where I am in the new administration, or at least if we have one. If we are to have a war, I have plenty of traps and trunks in this region, and if all comes right and I remain, it may be that some one will be coming South pretty soon without much baggage who would take something for me.

How are all the children? I must write to somebody soon; I guess it will be Bub, but Ida isn’t forgotten. She was a faithful little correspondent to tell me how Grandpa was. I shall not forget it of Ida. Can she skate yet? Now, aren’t you going to write me and tell me all the news? And you must remember me to Mrs. Waddington, Mrs. Aborn, and family, and, Jule, you must give my regards to Silas and Mr. Smith, for I don’t wish to be lost sight of by my old-time friends, among all the new ones here. And don’t forget to give my love to Mrs. Kidder and tell me how she is. You had best clap your hands for joy that I have no more room, only to say I am

Your affectionate sister

Clara

I forgot to cut my draft loose until I had written on the back of it, and then I cut it loose without thinking that I had written; so much for doing things in a hurry, and I can’t stop to rewrite a single word to anybody, so patch up and read if you can.

The Sixth Massachusetts left Washington and moved farther south. She tells of her feelings with regard to these men in a letter written May 19, 1861, to Annie Childs. The letter to which she referred as having been written on the same day to Frances Childs, and containing war news, has not been found:

Washington, D.C., May 19, 1861

My dear Annie:

I am very sorry that it will be in my power to write you so little and no more, but these are the busy days which know no rest, and there are at this moment thirty unanswered letters lying by my side—besides a perfect rush of ordinary business, and liable to be interrupted by soldier calls any moment. I wish I could tell you something of the appearance of our city, grand, noble, true, and brave. I wish you could see it just as it is, and if it were not that at this season of the year I had no thought that you could leave your business, I would say to you come,—and indeed I will say this much, hopeless as I deem it, aye, know it to be,—but this,—if you have the least curiosity to witness the events of our city as they are transpiring or enough so that you could come, you shall be doubly welcome, have a quiet nook to stay in, and I will find you all you want to do while you will stay, longer or shorter, and pay you all you ask for your services. If it were winter I should hope you would think well enough of it to come, but at this season of the year, I dare not, but rest assured nothing would please me as much, and Sally too. We often wish you would come, and I am in a most destitute condition. I cannot get a moment to sew in and can trust no one here. I know I must not urge you, but only add that I mean just what I say. If you care to come, you shall not lose your time, although I feel it to be preposterous in me to say such a thing at this time of the year, but I have said it at a venture and cannot retract. I saw your friend Mr. Parker before he left the city for the Relay House, and we had a long talk about you. I had never met him before, but was much pleased with his easy, pleasant manners and cordial ways. Allow me to congratulate you upon the possession of such friends.

For war news I must refer you to a letter I have written your sister to-day; she will show it to you.

I was sorry when the Sixth Regiment left us, but nothing could have delighted them more than the thought of nearing Baltimore again, and how successfully they have done it. I wept for joy when I heard of it all, and they so richly deserved the honor which is meted out to them—noble old regiment they; every one admires, and no one envies; there seems to be no jealousy towards them, all yield the precedence without a word, and their governor! I have no words good enough to talk about him with. Will this little scrap be better than nothing from your

Loving Coz

Clara

I have not forgotten my debt, but have nothing small enough to enclose. I will pay it.

How deeply stirred Clara Barton was by the events, which now were happening thick and fast, is shown by a portion of a letter in which she describes the funeral of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth. The death of this young man affected the Nation as that of no other who perished in the early days of the war. When Alexandria, which was practically a suburb of Washington, was occupied by the Federal troops, this young soldier was in command. After the troops had taken possession of the town, the Confederate flag was still flying from the roof of the hotel. Ellsworth ascended the stairs, tore down the flag, and was descending with it when he was shot by the proprietor of the hotel. Elmer Ellsworth was a fine and lovable man, and had been an intimate friend of President Lincoln in whose house he lived for a time. His theory of military organization was that a small body of men thoroughly disciplined was more effective than a large body without discipline. The Zouaves were largely recruited from volunteer fire companies. They were soldiers expert in climbing ladders and in performing hazardous deeds. Their picturesque uniform and their relatively high degree of discipline, as well as the death of their first commander, attracted great attention to them. Just after the funeral of Colonel Ellsworth, whose death Lincoln mourned as he would have mourned for a son, Clara Barton wrote a letter containing this description of his funeral:

Our sympathies are more enlisted for the poor bereaved Zouaves than aught else. They who of all men in the land most needed a leader and had the best—to lose him now in the very beginning; if they commit excesses upon their enemies, only their enemies are to blame, for they have killed the only man who ever thought to govern them, and now, when I read of one of them breaking over and committing some trespass and is called to account and punished for it, my blood rises in an instant. I would not have them punished. I know I am wrong in my conclusions, and do not desire to be justified, but I am not accountable for my feelings. The funeral of the lamented Ellsworth was one of the most imposing and touching sights I ever witnessed or perhaps ever shall. First those broad sidewalks from the President’s to the Capitol, two impossible lines of living beings, then company after company and whole regiments of sturdy soldiers with arms reversed, drums muffled, banners furled and draped, following each other in slow, solemn procession, the four white horses and the gallant dead, with his Country’s flag for a pall; the six bearers beside the hearse, and then the little band of Zouaves (for only a part could be spared from duty even to bury their leader), clad in their plain loose uniform, entirely weaponless, heads bowed in grief, eyes fixed on the coffin before them, and the great tears rolling down their swarthy cheeks, told us only too plainly of the smothered grief that would one day burst into rage and wreak itself in vengeance on every seeming foe; the riderless horse, and the rent and blood-stained Secession flag brought up the rear of the little band of personal mourners; then followed an official “train” led by the President and Cabinet—all of whom looked small to us that day; they were no longer dignitaries, but mourners with the throng. I stood at the Treasury, and with my eye glanced down the Avenue to the Capitol gate, and not one inch of earth or space could I see, only one dense living, swaying, moving mass of humanity. Surely it was great love and respect to be meted out to the memory of one so young and from the common ranks of life. I thought of it long that day and wondered if he had not sold himself at his highest price for his Country’s good—if the inspiration of “Ellsworth dead” were not worth more to our cause than the life of any man could be. I could not tell, but He who knows all things and ruleth all in wisdom hath done all things well.

How deeply she felt the sorrow of the soldier, and the anxiety of his loved ones at home, is shown in a letter which she wrote in June before there had been a decisive battle, but while the boys were rallying to the flag, “Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom.” The most of her letters of this period are descriptive of events which she witnessed, but this one is a meditation on a Sunday afternoon while the Nation was waiting for a great battle which every one felt was impending:

Washington, June 9th, 1861
Sunday afternoon

My dear Cousin Vira:

We have one more peaceful Sabbath, one more of God’s chosen days, with the sun shining calmly and brightly over the green, quiet earth as it has always looked to us, the same green fields, and limpid waters; and but that the long lines of snow-white tents flashed back the rays I might forget, on such an hour as this, the strange confusion and unrest that heaves us like a mighty billow, and the broad, dark, sweeping wing of war hovering over our heads, whose flap and crash is so soon to blacken our fair land, desolate our hearths, crush our mothers’ sacrificing hearts, drape our sisters in black, still the gleesome laugh of childhood, and bring down the doting father’s gray hair with sorrow to the grave. For however cheerfully and bravely he has given up his sons and sent them out to die on the altar of Liberty, however nobly and martyr-like he may have responded, they are no longer “mine” when their Country calls. Still has he given them up in hope,—and somewhat of trust,—that one day his dim eyes shall again rest on that loved form, his trembling voice be raised and his hand rest in blessing on the head of his darling soldier boy returned from the wars; and when he shall have sat and waited day by day, and trained his time-worn ear to catch the faintest, earliest lisp of tidings, and strained his failing eye, and cleared away the mist to read over day by day “the last letter,” until its successor shall have been placed in his trembling hands to be read and blotted in its turn; and finally there shall come a long silence, and then another letter in a strange handwriting—then, and not till then, shall the old patriot know how much of the great soul strength, that enabled him to bear his cherished offering to the altar, was loyalty, patriotism, and principle, and how much of it was hope.

The battle of Bull Run was fought on Sunday, July 21, 1861. Clara Barton witnessed the preparations for it, and saw its results. The boys marched so bravely, so confidently, and they came back in terror leaving 481 killed, 1011 wounded, and 1460 missing. The next night she began a letter to her father, but stopped at the end of the first page, and waited until near the end of the week before resuming. Unfortunately, the latter part of this letter is lost. She undertook to give somewhat in detail a description of the battle, and what she saw before it and after. That part of the letter which has been preserved is as follows:

Washington, D.C., July 22nd, 1861
Monday evening, 6 o’clock, P.M.

My dear Father:

It becomes my painful duty to write you of the disaster of yesterday. Our army has been unfortunate. That the results amount to a defeat we are not willing to admit, but we have been severely repulsed, and our troops returned in part to their former quarters in and around the city. This has been a hard day to witness, sad, painful, and mortifying, but whether in the aggregate it shall sum up a defeat, or a victory, depends (in my poor judgment) entirely upon circumstances; viz. the tone and spirit in which it leaves our men; if sad and disheartened, we are defeated, the worst and sorest of defeats; if roused to madness, and revenge, it will yet prove VICTORY. But no mortal could look in upon this scene to-night and judge of effects. How gladly would I close my eyes to it if I could. I am not fit to write you now, I shall do you more harm than good.

July 26th, Friday noon

You will think it strange that I commenced so timely a letter to you and stopped so suddenly. But I did so upon more mature reflection. You could not fail to know all that I could have told you so soon as I could have got letters through to you, and everything was so unreliable, vague, uncertain, and I confidently hoped exaggerated, that I deemed it the part of prudence to wait, and even now, after all this interval of time, I cannot tell you with certainty and accuracy the things I would like to. It is certain that we have at length had the “Forward Movement” which has been so loudly clamored for, and I am a living witness of a corresponding Backward one. I know that our troops continued to go over into Virginia from Wednesday until Saturday, noble, gallant, handsome fellows, armed to the teeth, apparently lacking nothing. Waving banners and plumes and bristling bayonets, gallant steeds and stately riders, the roll of the drum, and the notes of the bugle, the farewell shout and martial tread of armed men, filled our streets, and saluted our ears through all those days. These were all noble sights, but to me never pleasant; where I fain would have given them a smile and cheer, the bitter tears would come; for well I knew that, though the proudest of victories perch upon our banner, many a brave boy marched down to die; that, reach it when, and as they would, the Valley of Manassas was the Valley of Death.

Friday brought the particulars of Thursday’s encounter. We deplored it, but hoped for more care, and shrewder judgment next time. Saturday brought rumors of intended battle, and most conflicting accounts of the enemy’s strength; the evening and Sunday morning papers told us reliably that he had eighty thousand men, and constantly reënforced. My blood ran cold as I read it, lest our army be deceived; but then they knew it, the news came from them; surely they would never have the madness to attack, from open field, an enemy of three times their number behind entrenchments fortified by batteries, and masked at that. No, this could not be; then we breathed freer, and thought of all the humane consideration and wisdom of our time-honored, brave commanding general, that he had never needlessly sacrificed a man.

Clara Barton went immediately to the Washington hospitals to render assistance after the battle of Bull Run. But it did not require all the women in Washington to minister to a thousand wounded men. Those of the wounded who got to Washington were fairly well cared for; but two things appalled her, the stories she heard of suffering on the part of the wounded before they could be conveyed to the hospitals, and the almost total lack of facilities for the care of the wounded. She thought of the good clean cloth in New England homes that might be used for bandages; of the fruits and jellies in Northern farm homes which the soldiers would enjoy. She began advertising in the Worcester “Spy” for provisions for the wounded. She had immediate responses, and soon had established a distributing agency.

I am very glad to have first-hand testimony as to the establishment which she now set up. Mrs. Vassall, who, as Miss Frances Maria Childs, had been her assistant teacher in Bordentown, has described the home of Clara Barton during the Civil War. She said:

The rooms she took were in a business block. It was not an ideal place for a home-loving woman. Originally there had been one large room, but she had a wooden partition put through, and she made it convenient and serviceable. She occupied one room and had her stores in the other. It was a kind of tent life, but she was happy in it and made it a center from which she brought cheer to others.

Before the end of 1861 the Worcester women had begun to inquire whether there was any further need of their sending supplies to her. They had sent so much, they thought the whole army was provided for, and for the period of the war. We have her letter in reply:

Washington, D.C., December 16, 1861

Mrs. Miller, Sec.,
   Ladies’ Relief Committee,
      Worcester, Mass.

Dear Madam:

Your letter, mailed to me on the 11th, came duly to hand at a moment when I was more than busy, and, as I had just written Mrs. Dickensen (of whom I received the articles) a detailed account of their history and final destination, I have ventured with much regret to allow your letter to remain unanswered for a day, that I might find time to write you at greater length. You must before this have learned from my letter to Mrs. D. the occasion of the delay (viz., uncertain orders, rainy weather, and Maryland roads), and decided with me that the (anxious) package has long before this accomplished its mission of charity and love. The bundles were all packed together in a stout box, securely nailed, and given to the sutler of the 15th Regiment, who promised to deliver them safely at Headquarters. I have no doubt but it has all been properly done. A box for the 25th I had delivered to Captain Atwood’s Company, and heard with much satisfaction the gratification it afforded the various recipients. The men were looking splendidly, and I need not tell you that the 25th is a “live” regiment from its Colonel and Chaplain down. Worcester County has just cause for pride.

I come now to the expressions in your excellent letter which I had all along feared,—“Are our labors needed, are we doing any good, shall we work, or shall we forbear?” From the first I have dreaded lest a sense of vague uncertainty in regard to matters here should discourage the efforts of our patriotic ladies at home; it was this fear and only this which even gave me courage to assemble the worthy ladies of your Committee (so vastly my superiors) to confer upon a matter with which they seemed perfectly familiar, while I knew so little. And even now I scarce know how to reply. It is said, upon proper authority, that “our army is supplied.” Well, this may be so, it is not for me to gainsay, and so far as our New England troops are concerned, it may be that in these days of quiet idleness they have really no pressing wants, but in the event of a battle who can tell what their necessities might grow to in a single day? They would want then faster than you could make. But only a small portion of our army, comparatively speaking, are New England troops,—New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri have sent their hundreds of thousands, and I greatly fear that those States lack somewhat the active, industrious, intelligent organizations at home which are so characteristic of our New England circles. I think I discern traces of this in this camp. I feel, while passing through them, that they could be better supplied without danger of enervation from luxuries. Still it is said that “our army is supplied.” It is said also, upon the same authority, that we “need no nurses,” either male or female, and none are admitted.

I wished an hour ago that you had been with me. In compliance with a request of my sister in this city I went to her house and found there a young Englishman, a brother of one of their domestics who had enlisted during the summer in a regiment of Pennsylvania Cavalry. They are stationed at Camp Pierpont; the sister heard that her brother was sick, and with the energetic habit of a true Englishwoman crossed the country on foot nine miles out to his camp and back the same day, found him in an almost dying condition and begged that he be sent to her. He was taken shortly after in an ambulance, and upon his arrival his condition was found to be most deplorable; he had been attacked with ordinary fever six weeks before, and had lain unmoved until the flesh upon all parts of the body which rested hard upon whatever was under him had decayed, grown perfectly black, and was falling out; his heels had assumed the same appearance; his stockings had never been removed during all his illness and his toes were matted and grown together and are now dropping off at the joint; the cavities in his back are absolutely frightful. When intelligent medical attendance was summoned from the city, the verdict rendered upon examination was that his extremities were perishing for want of nourishment. He had been neglected until he was literally starving; too little nourishment had been taken into the system during his illness to preserve life in the extremities. This conclusion seems all the more reliable from the famished appearance which he presents. I am accustomed to see people hungry when recovering from a fever, but I find that hunger and starvation are two distinct conditions. He can lie only on his face with his insteps propped up with hair pillows to prevent his toes from touching the bed (for with the life engendered by food and care, sensation is returning to them), and asks only for “something to eat.” Food is placed by him at night, and with the earliest dawn of day commence his bowls of broths and soups and a little meat, and he eats and begs for “more,” and sleeps and eats and begs. Three of his toes are to be amputated to-day. The surgeon of the regiment comes to see him, but had no idea of his condition; said that their assistant surgeon was killed and that it “was true that the men had not received proper care; he was very sorry.” With the attention which this young man is now receiving, he will probably recover, but had it been otherwise? Only thus, that not far from this time the city papers under caption of “Death of Soldiers” would have contained the paragraph—“Benjamin (or Berry) Pollard, private, Camp Pierpont,” and this would have been the end. Whoever could have mistrusted that this soldier had starved to death through lack of proper attendance? Ah, me, all of our poor boys have not a sister within nine miles of them. And still it is said, upon authority, “we have no need of nurses” and “our army is supplied.” How this can be so I fail to see; still again it is not for me to gainsay. We are loyal and our authority must be respected, though our men perish. I only mention such facts as come under my own observation, and only a fraction of those. This is not by any means in accordance with our home style of judging. If we New England people saw men lying in camp uncared for until their toes rotted from their feet, with not persons enough about them to take care of them, we should think they needed more nurses; if with plenty of persons about who failed to care for them we should think they needed better. I can only repeat that I fail to see clear. I greatly fear that the few privileged, elegantly dressed ladies who ride over and sit in their carriages to witness “splendid services” and “inspect the Army of the Potomac” and come away “delighted,” learn very little of what lies there under canvas.

Since receiving your letter I have taken occasion to converse with a number of the most intelligent and competent ladies who are or have been connected with the hospitals in this city, and all agree upon one point, viz., that our army cannot afford that our ladies lay down their needles and fold their hands; if their contributions are not needed just to-day, they may be to-morrow, and somewhere they are needed to-day. And again all agree in advising that whatever be sent be gotten as nearly direct as possible from the hands of the donors to the very spot for which it is designed, not to pass through too general distribution, strengthening their advice by many reasons and circumstances which I do not feel at liberty to lay before you. No one can fail to perceive that a house of general receipts and distribution of stores of all descriptions from the whole United States must be a mammoth concern, abounding in confusion which always involves loss and destruction of property. I am confident that this idea cannot be incorrect, and therefore I will not hesitate to advance it upon my own responsibility, viz., that every State should have, in the vicinity of her greatest body of troops, a dépôt of her own where all her contributions should be sent and dispersed; if her own soldiers need it all, to them; if not, then let her share generously and intelligently with those who do need; but know what she has and what she gives. We shall never have any other precise method of discovering the real wants of our soldiers. When the storehouse of any State should be found empty, it would be safe to conclude that her troops are in need; then let the full garners render the required assistance. This would systematize the whole matter, and do away with all necessary confusion, doubt, and uncertainty; it would preclude all possibility of loss, as it would be the business of each house to look to its own property. There is some truth in the old maxim that “what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business.” I believe that as long ago as the early settlement of our country it was found that the plan, general labor, general storehouse, and general distribution, proved ineffective and reduced our own little colony to a state of confusion and almost ruin; there were one hundred persons then, one hundred thousand now. If, pecuniarily I were able, Massachusetts should have her dépôt in this city and I should have no fear of unreliability; this to me would be no experiment, for however dimly and slowly I discern other points, this has been clear to me from the first, strengthened by eight months’ daily observation.

While I write another idea occurs to me,—has it been thought of to provide each of our regiments that are to accompany the next expedition with some strong, well-filled boxes of useful articles and stores, which are not to be opened until some battle, or other strong necessity renders supplies necessary. These necessities are sure to follow, and, unless anticipated and guarded against, no activity on the part of friends at home can prevent the suffering which their absence will create. With regard to our 23d, 25th, and 27th Regiments, I cannot speak, but our 21st I know have no such provisions, and will not have unless thought of at home, and the consequence of neglect will be that by and by our very hearts will be wrung by accounts of our best officers and dearest friends having their limbs amputated by the light of two inches of tallow candle in the midst of a battle, and pitchy darkness close down upon men bleeding to death, or since essaying to stanch their wounds with husks and straw.

A note just now informs me that our four companies of surgeons from Fort Independence, now stationed at the arsenal in this city (some two miles from me), in waiting for their supplies from Boston, were compelled to sleep in low, damp places with a single blanket and are taking severe colds and coughing fearfully. My ingenuity points no way of relief but to buy sacking, run up many ticks to be filled with hay to raise them from the drafts a little, and to this the remainder of my day must be devoted; they are far more exposed than they would be on the ground under a good tent. I almost envy you ladies where so many of you can work together and accomplish so much, while my poor labors are so single-handed. The future often looks dark to me, and it seems sometimes that the smiles of Heaven are almost withdrawn from our poor, rent, and distracted country; and yet there is everything to be grateful for, and by no means the least is this strangely mild winter.

But I must desist and crave pardon for my (perhaps unpardonably) long letter, for if you have followed me thus far, and especially at comparatively as rapid a rate as I have written, you must be weary. I did not intend to say so much, but let my interest be my apology. And with one more final word in answer to your rational question I have done. Ladies, remember that the call for your organized efforts in behalf of our army was not from any commission or committee, but from Abraham Lincoln and Simon Cameron, and when they no longer need your labors they will tell you.

But all this preliminary work bore in upon the mind of Clara Barton two important truths. The first was a necessity for organization. People were ready to give if they knew where to give and how their gifts would be made effective. The problem was one of publicity, and then of effective organization for distribution. But the other matter troubled her yet more. Supplies distributed from Washington and relief given to men there reached the wounded many hours or even days after the beginning of their needs. What was required was not simply good nurses in hospitals and adequate food and medicine for the soldiers who were conveyed thither, but some sort of provision on the battle-field itself. In later years she described her own misgivings as she considered the kind of service that ought to be rendered, and of the difficulties, including those of social duties, which might stand in the way:

I was strong and thought I might go to the rescue of the men who fell. The first regiment of troops, the old 6th Massachusetts that fought its way through Baltimore brought my playmates and neighbors, the partakers of my childhood; the brigades of New Jersey brought scores of my brave boys, the same solid phalanx; and the strongest legions from old Herkimer, brought the associates of my seminary days. They formed and crowded around me. What could I do but go with them, or work for them and my country? The patriot blood of my father was warm in my veins. The country which he had fought for, I might at least work for, and I had offered my service to the Government in the capacity of a double clerkship at twice $1600 a year, upon discharge of two disloyal clerks from its employ—the salary never to be given to me, but to be turned back into the United States Treasury, then poor to beggary, with no currency, no credit. But there was no law for this, and it could not be done, and I would not draw salary from our Government in such peril, so I resigned and went into direct service of the sick and wounded troops wherever found.

But I struggled long and hard with my sense of propriety—with the appalling fact that I was only a woman whispering in one ear, and thundering in the other, the groans of suffering men dying like dogs, unfed and unsheltered, for the life of every institution which had protected and educated me!

I said that I struggled with my sense of propriety and I say it with humiliation and shame. I am ashamed that I thought of such a thing.

The thing that became increasingly plain to Clara Barton was that every hour that elapsed after a man was wounded before relief reached him was an hour on which might easily hang the issues of life and death. Somehow she must get relief to men on the battle-field itself.

In later years people used sometimes to address her in terms which implied that she had nursed with her own hands more soldiers than any other American woman who labored in military hospitals; that her hands had bound up more wounds than those of other nurses and sanitary leaders. She always tried to make it plain that she put forth no such claim for herself. Her distinctive contribution to the problem was one of organization and distribution, and especially of the prompt conveyance of relief to the places of greatest need and of greatest danger. In this she was soon to organize a system, and, indeed, had already effected the beginning of an organization which was to constitute her distinctive work in the Civil War and to lay the foundation for her great contribution to humanity, the American Red Cross.